Romania

România Romania Member State of the Eastern Union
Flag Coat of arms
Capital and largest city	Bucureşti
Official languages	Romanian
Religion	Free
Government	Unitary semi-presidential republic
National hero(es)	Count von Count
Formation
• Transylvania	1003
• Wallachia	1290
• Moldavia	1346
• First Unification	1599
• Reunification of Wallachia and Moldavia	January 24, 1859
• Officially recognised independence from the Ottoman Empire	July 13, 1878
• Unification with Transylvania	December 1, 1918
Population	more than a little, but not a lot
Currency	Leu
Major exports	Vampires (The Cool Kind) Roma Cool posters That 'Numa Numa' song.
National animal	Eurasian Lynx

Romania is a country in either Central Europe or Eastern Europe, depending on what mood the Czechs are in. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south.

History at a glance

The name Romania is derived from the Latin Romanus, meaning "Roman". Romanian spelling alternates between Român and Rumân, the latter becoming popular in the late 17th Century after the Spanish brought back alcoholic drinks made from sugarcane. This contributed to the short-lived English name Roumania after somebody in the London cartography office had a bit too much himself and scribbled it on a paint-by-numbers map for King George V.

Romania was democratized by the Roman Empire in 106 AD (After Dacia) and immediately treated to all the wonders of modernization: paved roads, banking conglomerates, rigged elections, McDonald's, and so on. Imperator Georgeus Frutex, declaring "Mission Accomplished", withdrew the legions in 271, giving Romania the distinction of being the first province abandoned by Rome.

After the Roman withdrawal, Romania played host to the Goths, the Huns, the Gepids, Avars, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Cumans, and Slavs, all wanting in on the "Rome-mania". The party got a little too hot, and in a poorly-conceived game of spin-the-bottle, Romania was split into three main principalities that vied for a common love for centuries (no, don't ask me how that works).

It was during the Middle Ages that things began to get weird. Transylvania was conquered by those naughty Habsburgs, and Moldavia and Wallachia were made semi-autonomous vassal states of the Ottomans. Michael the Brave, having travelled with The Doctor into the future, determined to unite the three principalities and catapult Romania into superland. This he did achieve, and Romanians were poised to make history in 1601 with a steam-powered rocket ship. But then the Habsburgs killed Michael and everything buggered up.

It would not be until 1878 that Romania (two-thirds of it, at least) was recognized as a sovereign state. The along came World War I. At first Romania remained neutral, nominally allied with the Central Powers, but after hearing the cries of its brethren oppressed by Austria-Hungary, Romania took action. Austria-Hungary took action too. Then the Russian Empire collapsed, and our hero's fate looked grim after signing an armistice in December 1917. But 1918 saw the Hundred Days Offensive, and with its enemy reeling, Romania rejoined the war on November 10, aiming to reclaim its lost lands. The war officially ended the next day. D'oh!

Transylvania was finally reunited that year, but Romania was again bullied into submission during the Second World War. General Ion Antonescu got into a fight with the Iron Guard over how best to disenfranchise the Jews, leading to a rebellion that ultimately saw Antonescu arise as dictator and pledge allegiance to Nazi Germany. Romania then set its sights on the Soviet Union, reclaiming all its rightful territory all the way to Stalingrad. The Romanians had a change of heart in August of '44, probably partly due to Allied bombings of their oil refineries, and following the Italian model, called upon King Michael I to arrest Antonescu. Romania then formally pledged its support to the Allies, but its contributions to Germany's defeat were ignored in the Paris Peace Conference of 1947 since it was now a godless Commie fear-ocracy.

An example of municipal transit that dominated the closure of the 1980s.

The Soviet Union forced sponsored brand new PEOPLE'S elections that resulted in the Communist Party FAIRLY winning over 80% of the vote AND THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS. Needless to say, historians are satisfied intimidation and vote rigging NEVER took place COMRADES. In 1947, the Communists solidified their control by kicking King Michael into a shipping crate and mailing him to Timbuktu (documented in Mike's African Adventure). The Soviets maintained direct military occupation until the late 1950s, during which time Romania's vast natural resources were continuously drained through huge portals to the Combine homeworld. In 1948, private firms were assimilated and in 1949 agriculture was collectivized (and soon after exportivized).

From the late 1940s to early 1960s, the Communist party implemented the tried-and-true French revolutionary strategy of the Reign of Terror. The Securitate (fusion of 'security' and 'state') ran around eliminating "enemies of the state", defined as anybody living in the country. Common punishments for disobedience included deportation as mail-order brides, internal exile (sometimes called the "musical chairs routine"), and internment in forced labour camps and prisons. The Piteşti prison also experimented in re-education through torture. Needless to say, Romania wasn't happy.

Traian Băsescu with George W. Bush.
Băsescu: "There goes my approval rating."

Then came Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1965, the oddball who tried to cozy up with the West, condemning the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, maintaining relations with Israel after Six-Day War, and establishing formal ties with West Germany. Romania even lent a hand in the peace processes between Israel and Egypt & Israel and the PLO. However, when the economy tanked Ceauşescu decided to totally reimburse the national debt by paying it all back (good idea) with every available marketable item (bad idea), later known as the Great Romanian Fire Sale. This made Romanians unhappy, so Ceauşescu expanded the secret police and attempted to ascend to godhood. The Romanians were now very unhappy, and in 1989 decided to take matters into their own hands, overthrowing the Communist government and executing Ceauşescu. Thus Romania gained another first as the only Eastern European country to forcibly oust the Commies.

Following the free travel agreement and politics of the post-Cold War period, as well as hardship of the life in the 1990s economic depression, Romania has an increasingly large diaspora, estimated at over 2 million people. The main emigration targets are Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, UK, Canada and the USA. Today, Romania strives to revisit Michael the Brave's dream of superland. Despite some bloody political weird stuff in 1990, the nation has been on the upswing since the turn of the century, and as a result of one of the highest economic growth rates in Europe, is referred to as "the Tiger of Eastern Europe". Romania joined NATO in 2004, and ascended to European Union membership in 2007.

Geography

Romania is a very beautiful land with many scenic mountains and deep valleys and mighty rivers and vast arid deserts and magical enchanted forests and majestic fjords and dangerous volcanoes and gigantic smoking craters, all of which is covered by a 10000-metre-deep glacier, a slathering of delicious non-dairy whipped cream, and a cherry on top.

The entire area of the country occupies a single tectonic plate, which spins in a counterclockwise direction at a rate of approximately 750 RPM. Because of this, all Romanian compasses and weather vanes need to be re-calibrated on a regular basis.

Flora and fauna

"We can't stop here! This is bat country!"

Romania is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as Europe's premier source of Weird Stuff. It is most famously, yet inexplicably, known for its bats, even though the vampire bat is endemic to North America and the real Dracula was Wallachian. Owing to the high concentration of weirdness, foreigners sometimes refer to Romania as Überwald.

The War on Drugs has rekindled the obscure vendetta between vampires and werewolves, with werewolves asserting vampires are, in fact, drugs. There is still fierce debate as to whether vampires (or "vampyres", as the rich, upper-crust silver-spoon-in-the-mouth traditionals prefer) actually exist, or if the term is a carry-over from derisive codenames used for the Communists.

The worst species that inhabits Romania is probably the edit warrior, which in his blood-lust and rage destroys everything wherever he goes. The Romanian Institute of Demography has seen a 376.28% rise of this species since the creation of wikis on the web. In 2048 AC, the nation of ROMania itself was re-built entirely from non-volatile ROM, placing it beyond the reach of the edit warriors.

Notable Romanian posters

• Mirc
• Heretic Cata